Posts Tagged ‘Arctic sea ice’

Climate Cassandras may have made a monumental, horrible, mistake. Using the rubric that humans dominate natural dynamic earth processes, they and the popular media argue that the warming of the Arctic portends disaster for polar bears and humanity, although the world as a whole is not warming. They focus on the unscientific premise that continuing rise in carbon dioxide concentration portends future societal disasters, calamities and debacles. (more…)

For many years, climate realists have pointed to expanding ice in Antarctica as a counter to the claim that decreasing ice in the Arctic is necessarily proof of anthropogenic global warming.

The folks at the Associated Press on Wednesday came up with an unbelievable answer to that in an article unbelievably titled “Experts: Global Warming Means More Antarctic ice”:

While the North Pole has been losing sea ice over the years, the water nearest the South Pole has been gaining it. Antarctic sea ice hit a record 7.51 million square miles in September. That happened just days after reports of the biggest loss of Arctic sea ice on record.

Climate change skeptics have seized on the Antarctic ice to argue that the globe isn’t warming and that scientists are ignoring the southern continent because it’s not convenient. But scientists say the skeptics are misinterpreting what’s happening and why. (more…)

According to Pezza et al. (2012) there has been a modest increasing trend in sea ice extent (SIE) around Antarctica over the era of satellite coverage, citing the studies of Watkins and Simmonds (2000), Zwally et al. (2002), Parkinson (2004), Turner et al. (2007) and Comiso and Nishio (2008).

In a broader study of the climatic link between the Southern Annular Mode and Southern Hemisphere SIE, Pezza et al. derived a history of Antarctic SIE for the period stretching from autumn 1979 to autumn 2008, based on remotely-sensed Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I passive microwave data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s National Snow and Ice Data Center. In doing so the three Australian scientists report that modest positive SIE trends were observed during all seasons, noting that “the absolute trends over spring and autumn are the most pronounced, with an increase of about half a million square kilometers over the whole period.” In percentage terms, they say “there is an increase between 2 and 3% during winter and spring and from 5 to 7% during the low ice season.” Of special note is their finding that “the greatest SIE on record observed during the low sea ice season occurred repeatedly in December 2007-February 2008 and March-May2008,” with both records being “far greater” than all previous records: 6% greater in the first case and 8% greater in the second. (more…)

SALT LAKE CITY — Recent dramatic changes in the Arctic will have a significant effect on our weather in Utah. That’s the conclusion of a top scientist studying Arctic sea ice.

Arctic sea ice is disappearing in summer much faster than scientists expected. That’s not just evidence of climate change; the ice itself is changing the climate, and it may be affecting weather as far away as Utah.

Scientists predicted summer sea ice would shrink, but they underestimated the trend. Now in late summer, much of the Arctic Ocean is open water; summer ice covers about half what it did 30 years ago.

On a recent visit to Utah, Professor Hajo Eicken, one of the leading experts in the study of Arctic ice melt, explained some of the findings of his research. (more…)

Madhav Khandekar is a former research scientist from Environment Canada and is presently on the Editorial Board of the international Journal Natural Hazards (Kluwer Netherlands). Khandekar was an Expert Reviewer for the IPCC 2007 climate change documents and his latest contribution to sea level rise is a Chapter (Global warming, glacier melt and future sea level rise) in the Book “Global Warming” published by Sciyo Publishers (Sciyo.com) October 2010.

There is now a heightened interest on the possibility of rapid melting of world-wide glaciers and ice caps ( e.g., Greenland and Antarctic ice caps) as a result of ongoing warming which could lead to escalated sea level rise in the ‘near future’. Sea Level Rise (SLR) is an important climate change parameter which is being intensely discussed at present in the context of human-induced global warming and the climate change debate. Many newspaper articles as well as science magazine articles often refer to world-wide glacier melts and the possibility of sea level rise of 3 to 7 ft (1 to 2m) over the next fifty to one hundred years. (more…)

I receive many e-mails, and a recurring complaint is that many of my posts are too technical to understand. This morning’s installment arrived with the subject line, “Please Talk to Us”, and suggested I provide short, concise, easily understood summaries and explanations “for dummies”.

So, here’s a list of basic climate change questions, and brief answers based upon what I know today. I might update them as I receive suggestions and comments. I will also be adding links to other sources, and some visual aids, as appropriate.(more…)

We have been hearing a lot about how the decline in Arctic ice is following the “steepest slope ever.” The point is largely meaningless, but we can have some fun with it. The Bremen Arctic/Antarctic maps are superimposed above, showing that ice in the Antarctic is at a record high and growing at the “steepest slope ever.” You will also note that most of the world’s sea ice is located in the Antarctic. But those are inconvenient truths when trying to frighten people into believing that “the polar ice caps are melting.”

There are several favorite lines of defense when trying to rationalize away the record Antarctic ice. (more…)

The Navy requires accurate sea ice information for their operations, and has spent a lot of effort over the years studying, measuring, and operating in Arctic ice both above and below, such as they did in the ICEX 2009 exercise.

The US Navy attack submarine USS Annapolis (SSN 760) rests in the Arctic Ocean after surfacing through three feet of ice during Ice Exercise 2009 on March 21, 2009. The two-week training exercise, which is used to test submarine operability and war-fighting capability in Arctic conditions, also involved the USS Helena (SSN 725), the University of Washington and personnel from the Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory. (more…)

Global warming alarmists have chosen the wrong part of the climate cycle to head north

First, American Ann Bancroft and Norwegian Liv Arnesen trekked off across the Arctic in the dead of the 2007 winter, “to raise awareness about global warming,” by showcasing the wide expanses of open water they were certain they would encounter. Instead, icy blasts drove temperatures inside their tent to -58 F, while outside the nighttime air plunged to -103 F.

Open water is rare at those temperatures, the intrepid explorers discovered. Facing frostbite, amputated toes and even death, the two were airlifted out 18 miles into their 530-mile expedition.

Next winter it was British swimmer and ecologist Lewis Gordon Pugh, who planned to breast-stroke across open Arctic seas. Same story. Then fellow Brit Pen Hadow gave it a go, but it was another no-go.(more…)

Today NOAA officially announced www.climate.gov It didn’t take skeptics long to find a sin of omission. WUWT reader Dave N. pointed this one out to me.

Let’s start with the lecture to skeptics in the Dec 31st 2009 story “What the future may hold” which is an article about sea ice extent. The climate.gov website has been in “beta” for a couple of months. It was announced first on WUWT on December 2nd, 2009. There has been plenty of time to correct this story. The story states:

“When you’re in a court of law, you have to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The people who have been focusing on the ‘cooling’ have not been telling the whole truth,”

The desperation of the climate extremists as global temperatures plummet for the tenth year in a row is growing. Stephen Schneider, professor of environmental biology and “global change” at Stanford University, said today:

“We can no longer prevent global warming — it is upon us. Rapidly melting polar icecaps, acidification of the oceans, loss of coral reefs, longer droughts, more devastating wildfires, and sea level rise that threatens island nations and seacoasts everywhere are clear signs of change in Earth’s climate. Disruptions of the monsoon seasons in India and China already threaten crop yields resulting in more frequent and severe food shortages than in the recent past … If we continue ‘business as usual’ our habitat could be disrupted beyond recognition, with consequences for our way of life that we cannot now foresee. Without vigorous and immediate follow-up to the Copenhagen conference and well-conceived action we are all threatened by accelerating and irreversible changes to our planet.”